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February 2010

My grandmother is a bit on the eccentric side. My father always says it’s because she has too much money, but he gets weird about money things so I’m not really sure that’s it.

I love to visit her house. When I was younger I’d play for hours in the backyard. In the garden there’s this table set for tea but everything is bronze, cups and books and teapot and even the tablecloth. When it rains the cups fill with rainwater and I remember it looked almost like tea to my younger self. I think I tried to drink it once, with some difficulty considering the cups don’t come up from the table.

I asked her about it recently, having gotten old enough to wonder where the table and its contents came from instead of just accepting it as it was. She told me that once it was a regular table and she and my grandfather would sit there and read with their tea every afternoon. After he died she couldn’t bear clearing it away and she hired someone to cover the whole thing in bronze, so their last teatime would stay there, always.

First I was trying to write in the ever-ongoing Revisionland Scrivener Document of Doom, but I have been looking at the same gap between paragraphs that needs to be sewn together somehow periodically all day and nothing is coming to me.

So then I said to myself, well, I’ll write something else. I haven’t blogged this week, I should come up with something to blog about.

And I sat and tried to think of something to blog about while listening to the rain and giving Bucket tummy rubs.

I got nothing.

Nada. Zip. It is just not a good word-brain day for me, apparently.

I have done other things. I adjusted the settings on my e-mail accounts. I deleted lots of old e-mails. I decoupaged the top of what will likely end up being a jewelry box. I listened to the rain & thought about revisions, even though I didn’t actually write.

I don’t believe in writer’s block, not really. At least not for me. But I do have days when the words don’t want to transmit properly from my brain to my keyboard, and apparently today is just one of those days, so far. Sometimes I write better at night, so we’ll see.

I did spend part of yesterday figuring out the plot of a long-languishing work-in-progress, completely unintentionally. So I might have tricked my brain out of revisionland and now it has to slowly meander its way back. Poor confused brain.

It’s hard to feel productive without wordcount as a measurement. It’s so easy, to say “yay, I wrote 2k today!” and feel accomplished. I know I can write 2k or more in a day when I’m just drafting, but revising is a different game and I’m still getting used to it. It’s about working in pages and paragraphs instead of thousands of words. Writing one really good sentence instead of lots and lots of sentences.

So I have to keep telling myself that even though I feel like I’m not making enough progress, not revising fast enough, I’m probably wrong. I’m being methodical and thoughtful about it. I am getting something done even when I’m just listening to the rain.

At first there were complaints about the noise. Not that anyone knows what the noise is, precisely, even though it is rather loud. Whatever it is inside the building, echoing and humming and clicking, remains a mystery.

The bits that spill out onto the surrounding lot are made of stone and glass and wood, pieces without any easily discernible function, sitting quietly while the echoing hum rumbles continuously on.

After a bunch of kids threw stones at the glass the noise stopped for about a day.

The next morning the odd-shaped glass bits that had been shattered were intact again and the eagles were there, keeping watch.

The stone throwing stopped. Everything stopped, really. The graffiti, the robberies, any sort of crime within several blocks just stopped that day and so far it hasn’t started up again.

“Jane Austen was the spinster daughter of a clergyman who led an uneventful life,” wrote Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Guardian. “She just happened to write half a dozen flawless masterpieces, which came perfectly formed, not from experience but from imagination.” Most of us don’t have anything close to the inconceivably potent imagination that Austen possessed. But I believe 2010 will be a year when you can access at least a portion of that wondrous capacity. You’ll be able to fantasize about vast possibilities in exquisite detail. You will have great skill at smashing your way free of limiting expectations through the power of your expansive vision. And the coming weeks will be a time when it should all kick into high gear.

We went to closing night of Sleep No More on Sunday. I stayed away from the main plot this time, I think I only saw the Macbeths proper once or twice. I wandered through bits of Rebecca made more enchanting by having recently watched the Hitchcock film. Hecate was once again quite fond of my jewelry and this time she pulled me away for private storytime. I saw scenes I’d somehow managed to miss the first three times. It must have been virtually impossible to see everything, and I think that’s part of what made it so magical. I will miss it terribly. Thank You to Punchdrunk & the A.R.T. for such an incomparable experience that I was lucky enough to have four times over, though thank you only begins to encompass what I mean.

Remember how I said I was going to try to have a revised draft of the novel done by my return to Manderley? That was lies. I have a lot done, but it’s nowhere near finished draft proportions. I’ve given up on deadlines, as much as they make that lovely wooshing sound when they go by. Still typing away. Putting word after word and adjusting page after page and hopefully eventually I’ll reach the end.

I tried to come up with things to say about last week’s LOST premiere that weren’t spoilery or convoluted, but really it just boils down to three things:

They need to stop killing off the female characters.

The “I don’t understand” speech was the best delivery of any line on this show ever.

I really hope they can pull this entire conceit off.

Looking forward to seeing where they go from here. Still trying to get used to Tuesday being LOST day, too.

Still mostly all Revisionland, all the time around here. We escaped the snow this weekend but apparently it’s getting back at us tomorrow. Will be hibernating.

I have been trying all day to come up with coherent things to say about LOST.

I keep ending up with OMGLOST!!!

And then I check the time to see how many hours are left until the S6 premiere. (Just under five & counting.)

We finished our epic re-watch over the weekend. Five seasons in just about two months. LOST really does benefit from being watched in quick succession, rather than being drawn out week-to-week. You remember more, for one thing, even though there were still points when the boy and I couldn’t recall details from episodes we’d watched a week or two before. It’s just so epic. It’s hard to believe this is the beginning of the end.

I love this show to pieces. I just do. I could go on about the acting or the writing or the mythology but I’m beyond explaining it without flailing like a fangirl. As much as I’d like to post something thoughtful or meaningful, OMGLOST!!! pretty much covers it.

So I have my numbers shirt on and I’m making Pina Coladas later and I greatly regret that I only just saw this Dharma brand party pack. Might have to pick that up for the finale.

And y’all have probably seen these around the wilds of the internet already, but I love them so you can see them here again: LOST posters by Ty Mattson. I think this one is my favorite, but it’s so hard to choose.